WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.490 align:start ROBERT COSTA: A legendary reporter shines a light on the Trump presidency. 00:05.490 --> 00:10.800 align:start I'm Robert Costa. Tonight we welcome Bob Woodward to Washington Week. 00:10.800 --> 00:16.910 align:start A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Bob Woodward depicts chaos inside the 00:16.910 --> 00:22.390 align:start White House. Why are so many officials questioning President Trump's decisions 00:22.390 --> 00:27.540 align:start on trade, national security, and the showdown with the special counsel? 00:27.540 --> 00:31.930 align:start Is the Trump administration on the brink of a nervous breakdown? 00:31.930 --> 00:37.410 align:start We discuss the stakes for the president and the country, next. 00:37.410 --> 01:18.820 align:start ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again, from Washington, moderator Robert Costa. 01:18.820 --> 01:25.170 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Good evening. Tonight, a special edition of our program: Bob Woodward, 01:25.170 --> 01:30.570 align:start the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post, joins us for a conversation 01:30.570 --> 01:36.790 align:start about his new book, Fear: Trump in the White House. Bob traces Donald Trump's journey 01:36.790 --> 01:43.020 align:start from the campaign trail to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Bob, so glad to have you here. 01:43.020 --> 01:44.850 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Thank you. 01:44.850 --> 01:47.880 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Speaking of Pennsylvania Avenue, I think back to our conversation with 01:47.880 --> 01:50.390 align:start then-candidate Trump in March of - 01:50.390 --> 01:53.530 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Two-and-a-half years ago. ROBERT COSTA: Two-and-a-half years ago. 01:53.530 --> 01:57.200 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Yeah. And we sat in that little restaurant after - before 01:57.200 --> 02:01.800 align:start going to his hotel, which was then undergoing renovation. 02:01.800 --> 02:05.090 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And do you remember what he told us? You told me then, Bob, that we 02:05.090 --> 02:11.180 align:start need to find out how President Trump sees power. You said that's the core of a 02:11.180 --> 02:15.640 align:start presidency, how they use power. So what have you learned? 02:15.640 --> 02:22.020 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Yes, so much. But to go back to that moment, we're talking about power. 02:22.020 --> 02:28.150 align:start And what we did - Obama, of course, was the incumbent, so you and I went back and looked 02:28.150 --> 02:34.730 align:start at some Obama statements, his first inaugural. He said, oh, it's - you know, being 02:34.730 --> 02:42.470 align:start president is about restraint and humility, and real power is not having to use violence. 02:42.470 --> 02:48.530 align:start So we asked Trump, you know, what about power? And that's when he said, real power 02:48.530 --> 02:56.240 align:start is - I don't even like to use the word - "fear." And it was this moment - I kind of 02:56.240 --> 03:01.510 align:start jumped in my chair; I think you did, too - that this is the clue. 03:01.510 --> 03:04.460 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So how does he use that power? 03:04.460 --> 03:09.710 align:start Is there an ideology that's driving this, or is it all about transactional politics? 03:09.710 --> 03:16.530 align:start BOB WOODWARD: It's all about pragmatic moments, the application of ideas that he's had 03:16.530 --> 03:24.160 align:start going back often 30 years ago about national security, about the presidency, about trade, 03:24.160 --> 03:30.230 align:start I mean, you name - about North Korea, about the North American Free Trade Agreement, 03:30.230 --> 03:36.710 align:start about Europe. And what I've tried to do is say, OK, well, what does he do in each of 03:36.710 --> 03:45.940 align:start these cases? But there's a line between our discussion before going to see Trump and 03:45.940 --> 03:57.060 align:start then talking to Trump. And the presidency is also about an obligation to the people 03:57.060 --> 04:01.090 align:start who put you there, but not just the ones who elected you. 04:01.090 --> 04:06.690 align:start And I always think the job of the president is to establish the next stage of good for a 04:06.690 --> 04:12.040 align:start majority of people in the country - not a base, not one party, not interest groups. 04:12.040 --> 04:16.660 align:start And this is one of the things he has not done. 04:16.660 --> 04:21.360 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What drives those views, though? You talk about 30 years, and in the 04:21.360 --> 04:25.660 align:start book President Trump tells Gary Cohn, his former top economic advisor, I've had these 04:25.660 --> 04:29.290 align:start views for 30 years. But why does he have those views? 04:29.290 --> 04:33.100 align:start BOB WOODWARD: He doesn't answer. He just, that's the way it is, and if you disagree 04:33.100 --> 04:40.130 align:start with me - this is Trump saying this - you're wrong. And so you can't - we all have to 04:40.130 --> 04:50.720 align:start grow. Presidents have to grow. And the ability to listen and change or modify, shift 04:50.720 --> 04:59.990 align:start it a little bit, is the core of surviving in the presidency. And there is, as I said, 04:59.990 --> 05:08.040 align:start this nervous breakdown, and I think it manifests itself in everything. 05:08.040 --> 05:15.260 align:start Now, you live in Trump world, covering it. What surprised you the most in this book? 05:15.260 --> 05:19.050 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What surprised me was the effort that's being made by so many people around 05:19.050 --> 05:23.440 align:start him to bring him back into the mainstream, back towards certain norms. 05:23.440 --> 05:27.420 align:start You see that in the scene you detail at the Pentagon, in the so-called Tank at the 05:27.420 --> 05:32.090 align:start Pentagon, where they try to explain to him the traditional alliances of U.S. 05:32.090 --> 05:35.490 align:start foreign policy. He's pretty dismissive about it all. 05:35.490 --> 05:38.460 align:start BOB WOODWARD: He's insulting to people. 05:38.460 --> 05:44.290 align:start And I mean, here you have Mattis, the secretary of defense, saying to him - puts up on 05:44.290 --> 05:53.500 align:start the wall these maps of kind of the pillars of the old order: trade agreements; security 05:53.500 --> 06:01.140 align:start agreements like NATO; and then the very sensitive, secret, top-secret, special access 06:01.140 --> 06:10.520 align:start program intelligence partnerships - and Trump doesn't buy into any of this. And they're 06:10.520 --> 06:16.630 align:start all discouraged on the economic side. Mnuchin tries to - Trump went, oh, we've got to 06:16.630 --> 06:22.540 align:start declare China a currency manipulator. And he tells him, Mr. President, look, they used 06:22.540 --> 06:29.470 align:start to, but they don't now, and the law is very clear you can't do it unless the - you can't 06:29.470 --> 06:36.060 align:start file and take action unless they're doing it now. And Trump is just, declare it. 06:36.060 --> 06:41.630 align:start You know, that - as if you can rule beyond the law. 06:41.630 --> 06:46.320 align:start ROBERT COSTA: That style in terms of foreign policy has a real cost. You write about 06:46.320 --> 06:52.110 align:start how the U.S. came to the brink of a real dramatic situation with North Korea. 06:52.110 --> 06:56.730 align:start The president was pulled back on tweeting about removing dependents from South Korea. 06:56.730 --> 07:05.000 align:start BOB WOODWARD: And this could - and just at the time the top North Korean leader had sent 07:05.000 --> 07:10.670 align:start a message through intermediaries to H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, on 07:10.670 --> 07:18.720 align:start December 4th of last year saying if you start withdrawing dependents, we will take that 07:18.720 --> 07:25.320 align:start as a signal that war is imminent. Now, you have a volatile leader, Kim Jong-un. 07:25.320 --> 07:34.120 align:start He's got these nuclear weapons and there's no predictable path for understanding how he 07:34.120 --> 07:39.950 align:start might respond. And the Pentagon leadership went nuts about this and just said, you - and 07:39.950 --> 07:47.770 align:start the tweet never went out, but had it, you know, God knows. And this is the problem. 07:47.770 --> 07:57.880 align:start You are crisis managing - that's what the presidency is about - and you got to have a 07:57.880 --> 08:03.380 align:start team. You've got to have agreement on fundamentals. And they don't have it. 08:03.380 --> 08:07.830 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Do the people around him who are taking documents off of his desk, 08:07.830 --> 08:11.720 align:start different trade agreements the president's trying to rip up, do they see themselves, when 08:11.720 --> 08:15.730 align:start you talk to them, as heroes? Or do they know they are, in a sense, mounting, 08:15.730 --> 08:19.310 align:start as you call it, an administrative coup d'etat? 08:19.310 --> 08:26.180 align:start BOB WOODWARD: There is lots of conscience in this, and the connection between trade and 08:26.180 --> 08:32.650 align:start the military and the intelligence operations are very, very secret, but they are 08:32.650 --> 08:42.040 align:start interwoven. And people who did this are saying to each other, got to save the country, 08:42.040 --> 08:50.440 align:start one of them saying a third of my time is spent keeping bad things from happening. 08:50.440 --> 08:56.200 align:start And so alarm bells are going off all the time. 08:56.200 --> 09:00.450 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to the president, has called it 09:00.450 --> 09:04.920 align:start an in-your-face state, this group of people around the president who are trying to corral 09:04.920 --> 09:10.130 align:start him in a different direction, not necessarily a deep state. How do you see that whole effort? 09:10.130 --> 09:16.520 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Well, it's - Trump will just do what he wants; and he'll listen up to a 09:16.520 --> 09:20.670 align:start point, then he will dismiss, like steel tariffs. 09:20.670 --> 09:26.800 align:start Now, if you took a thousand economists and say do steel tariffs make sense - and I quote 09:26.800 --> 09:33.630 align:start a document in the book where experts on the left, the right, the economists, Nobel Prize 09:33.630 --> 09:44.270 align:start winners, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, leading Democratic and Republican economists, send 09:44.270 --> 09:53.060 align:start him a letter saying don't do this; this will not work. And, of course, he does it and 09:53.060 --> 10:01.240 align:start calls in the steel executives. Even John Kelly, the national - I'm sorry, the chief of 10:01.240 --> 10:06.500 align:start staff, didn't know that there was going to be this meeting, and Trump just does it. 10:06.500 --> 10:12.500 align:start Under the law, he has that authority. Some people think he may be stretching it. 10:12.500 --> 10:20.150 align:start But now we are in the world of these trade wars, which he says he thinks he can win. 10:20.150 --> 10:30.270 align:start Wow. Danger, danger. I mean, the fright that people feel about, you know - and there's 10:30.270 --> 10:39.040 align:start one point where he - Tom Bossert, who's his cybersecurity chief - I mean, no one has 10:39.040 --> 10:46.410 align:start talked about this - but he goes to see Trump. He's going to go on television, on a Sunday show. 10:46.410 --> 10:54.230 align:start And Trump says, tell them I'm putting tariffs on, up to 500 billion (dollars) on China. 10:54.230 --> 10:59.790 align:start Now, this was four or five months ago, and of course that's exactly where he's heading. 10:59.790 --> 11:09.070 align:start And the president's so pumped up about this he says, you know, boy, it's too bad it's a 11:09.070 --> 11:14.950 align:start Sunday show because if it were Monday and the markets were open you'd tank the markets. 11:14.950 --> 11:23.800 align:start The president's job is not to tank the markets; it's to stabilize the markets. I was really 11:23.800 --> 11:31.510 align:start surprised by that, that he would - because, you know, he spent all this time in New 11:31.510 --> 11:39.220 align:start York, understands finance in a way; in a way he does not. But to speak proudly of tanking 11:39.220 --> 11:46.120 align:start the markets, potentially, I mean, what did you think? You cover - you live Trump day to day. 11:46.120 --> 11:50.050 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And you've had the opportunity to spend so much time talking to these key 11:50.050 --> 11:54.940 align:start players inside, talking to you on deep background, revealing what really is happening. 11:54.940 --> 11:58.290 align:start And what have you learned, though, about President Trump as a person? 11:58.290 --> 12:02.710 align:start You say he knows the markets. What else does he know beyond the tweets? 12:02.710 --> 12:05.630 align:start BOB WOODWARD: But he doesn't. I mean, he knows some of the markets. He knows they're 12:05.630 --> 12:10.480 align:start out there. But he thinks things like, oh, let's just print money, run the presses. 12:10.480 --> 12:16.100 align:start And, you know, they're telling him, no, you can't do that; you'll run up the deficit. 12:16.100 --> 12:21.220 align:start And as you know, economists on the left and the right, Republicans and Democrats, are 12:21.220 --> 12:27.270 align:start really worried about the deficit spending. But it's just, you know, let's do it; let's print money. 12:27.270 --> 12:31.810 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Secretary Jim Mattis in the Defense Department, Chief of Staff John Kelly, 12:31.810 --> 12:36.350 align:start are they getting too much credit for keeping President Trump in line? 12:36.350 --> 12:40.380 align:start Because he still seems to be going his own way on every front. 12:40.380 --> 12:44.700 align:start BOB WOODWARD: That's a really interesting question. I mean, where is the credit? 12:44.700 --> 12:50.740 align:start I think it happens at lots of levels. There are some people who have read the book 12:50.740 --> 12:56.090 align:start now who say, well, you know, he hasn't started a war, which is quite true. He's talked 12:56.090 --> 13:03.890 align:start about, you know, let's assassinate or let's go after - let's kill the Syrian leader, Assad. 13:03.890 --> 13:13.170 align:start He has - someone was telling me today - Hugh Hewitt, who's a smart watcher most of the 13:13.170 --> 13:19.320 align:start time on these things, said he wants to airdrop copies of the book to every embassy in 13:19.320 --> 13:28.080 align:start Washington, because this will tell you how he's working. It tells you a lot that's new. 13:28.080 --> 13:34.240 align:start But there is the mystery of the Trump personality which persists, don't you think? 13:34.240 --> 13:37.450 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And the mystery of the Republican Party persists. You have all these 13:37.450 --> 13:41.370 align:start advisors and officials in the book trying to bring President Trump in a different 13:41.370 --> 13:46.450 align:start direction. But where are the Republican leaders - Speaker Ryan, Majority Leader McConnell? 13:46.450 --> 13:51.800 align:start They seem to barely figure in this effort to keep Trump moving toward the center. 13:51.800 --> 13:57.330 align:start BOB WOODWARD: That's exactly right. And of course, this is - a lot of people have 13:57.330 --> 14:03.290 align:start compared this to the Nixon case and Watergate, which I spent years of my life on. 14:03.290 --> 14:10.400 align:start And at a certain point it tipped, and the Republicans said - as Barry Goldwater, the 14:10.400 --> 14:19.300 align:start former late senator from Arizona finally went and said: Too many lies, too many crimes. 14:19.300 --> 14:26.070 align:start And Nixon resigned the next day. Where that tipping point is with Trump, if there is 14:26.070 --> 14:32.290 align:start one, we don't know. Somebody who knows him well after the book came out said: He's 14:32.290 --> 14:39.750 align:start going to lash out at you. Which he's done. He is a master at changing the conversation, 14:39.750 --> 14:46.060 align:start as you know. And so you - we're going to see efforts to change the conversation, 14:46.060 --> 14:55.520 align:start which is fine. But it's - the core thought I have, there's a war on truth. 14:55.520 --> 15:02.290 align:start And the book ends with John Dowd, his lawyer for eight months in the Mueller 15:02.290 --> 15:08.260 align:start investigation - he won't tell him this, because it's too insulting - but he said: You're 15:08.260 --> 15:20.680 align:start an effing liar. That's the summation. And you can't run this complex country on untruth. 15:20.680 --> 15:24.430 align:start ROBERT COSTA: How much is that Mueller investigation, the special counsel looking into 15:24.430 --> 15:29.480 align:start Russian interference in the 2016, hovering over this presidency, fueling the anger? 15:29.480 --> 15:32.240 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Immensely so. 15:32.240 --> 15:39.800 align:start More so than I thought in - there were a couple of scenes where Trump asks Dowd to go to 15:39.800 --> 15:45.470 align:start Mueller and say: You know, the president wants you to know that the Egyptian President 15:45.470 --> 15:55.570 align:start el-Sisi - a real tyrant - called and negotiated with Trump about getting some charity 15:55.570 --> 16:03.380 align:start worker released from Egypt, which happened. And then Trump recounts what el-Sisi said. 16:03.380 --> 16:10.420 align:start Said - you know, and Trump's telling Dowd, this guy, el-Sisi, is a killer. 16:10.420 --> 16:17.660 align:start He's a real killer. He'll make you sweat on the phone. And then he - Trump assumes 16:17.660 --> 16:24.310 align:start the gravelly voice of el-Sisi and says: Donald what about this investigation? 16:24.310 --> 16:31.390 align:start What's going on here? Will you still be around? Suppose I need a favor? 16:31.390 --> 16:35.260 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So he feels that kind of burden in operating foreign policy. 16:35.260 --> 16:39.240 align:start He can't escape it. Can't escape the Russia probe, day in, day out. 16:39.240 --> 16:43.500 align:start BOB WOODWARD: That's right. And when he - the day after Mueller was appointed in 16:43.500 --> 16:49.630 align:start May of last year, there is a long, extended scene in the Oval Office, in the dining 16:49.630 --> 16:54.190 align:start room, where Trump is just beside himself. Doesn't really sit down. 16:54.190 --> 17:01.270 align:start Is just on his feet, back and forth, TiVo-ing all the cable news and looking at some of 17:01.270 --> 17:06.750 align:start it and just saying, you know, how has this happened? He realized the calamity of having 17:06.750 --> 17:15.140 align:start a special counsel. And he said: They'll get - Mueller is going to go into every phase of my life. 17:15.140 --> 17:26.130 align:start I am - I am - I mean, he feels and sounds like he's been tied up by this, right at the outset. 17:26.130 --> 17:29.360 align:start ROBERT COSTA: I mean, rightfully. If you think about what happened on 17:29.360 --> 17:33.100 align:start Friday - earlier today, Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, decides to 17:33.100 --> 17:39.030 align:start plead guilty to money laundering, cooperating with Mueller's investigation. It doesn't stop. 17:39.030 --> 17:43.440 align:start BOB WOODWARD: It doesn't, but I mean, you would know more about this. Would 17:43.440 --> 17:48.850 align:start Manafort know much? I think he was just brought in to manage the campaign for a short 17:48.850 --> 17:54.020 align:start period of time for the Republican National Convention. Do you think he knows much about - 17:54.020 --> 17:57.350 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, he just - he's connected to the Trump - he was the chairman of the 17:57.350 --> 18:02.000 align:start Trump campaign. My point is, is that every day President Trump, whether it's in a conversation 18:02.000 --> 18:07.710 align:start with a world leader or with his staff, he haunted in a sense by this Russia investigation. 18:07.710 --> 18:14.340 align:start BOB WOODWARD: He definitely is. And here's the interesting question for our business, 18:14.340 --> 18:20.970 align:start the media. How do we cover him aggressively but fairly? Because there are lots of 18:20.970 --> 18:27.180 align:start people, his supporters, who think we've adopted a tone of snideness. 18:27.180 --> 18:30.270 align:start And, you know, how do you get that? I mean, I - 18:30.270 --> 18:33.910 align:start ROBERT COSTA: How do you do it? BOB WOODWARD: How do you do it? 18:33.910 --> 18:36.660 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, I'm just - you think about the Trump voter. 18:36.660 --> 18:39.900 align:start Whenever you go meet them on the campaign trail they say the economy's strong, they like 18:39.900 --> 18:44.500 align:start the nominees for the Supreme Court. They think President Trump's doing fine. 18:44.500 --> 18:47.780 align:start So there's a disconnect in the country - parts of the country - those who 18:47.780 --> 18:52.230 align:start are alarmed by President Trump and those who say he's doing just fine. 18:52.230 --> 18:58.350 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Well, I think the answer, as always, as you and I have talked over the 18:58.350 --> 19:04.200 align:start last couple of years, more reporting. What really happened? What did they say? 19:04.200 --> 19:08.480 align:start What was the final resolution of some of these things? 19:08.480 --> 19:13.370 align:start Or at least, the temporary resolution because often there isn't a final one. 19:13.370 --> 19:17.990 align:start ROBERT COSTA: How does the president see race? There's this episode in this book 19:17.990 --> 19:22.800 align:start about Charlottesville in 2017. He calls his speech where he apologizes for his initial 19:22.800 --> 19:27.900 align:start remarks or backtracks them, "the worst mistake of his presidency." What does that tell us? 19:27.900 --> 19:33.300 align:start BOB WOODWARD: I mean, this is so - he says about Charlottesville, oh, both sides are 19:33.300 --> 19:41.810 align:start responsible. And there is an eruption of, wait a minute, you're saying Nazis are fine? 19:41.810 --> 19:51.070 align:start And so then Rob Porter, the staff secretary, and Sarah Sanders work with him on a speech 19:51.070 --> 19:59.210 align:start which he gives, which is a healing speech, on Sunday. And - but if you look at that, 19:59.210 --> 20:04.400 align:start if you ran it, you would see it's kind of like a hostage tape. He's saying things he 20:04.400 --> 20:11.460 align:start doesn't necessarily believe. But he said them. And then he watches a little Fox News 20:11.460 --> 20:17.800 align:start and people are saying it's a course correction. And he blows up and says: That's the 20:17.800 --> 20:23.040 align:start worst effing speech I ever gave. How could I do that? Who talked me into it? 20:23.040 --> 20:31.440 align:start And then the next Monday he reverts to his original position in a very stark way. 20:31.440 --> 20:34.410 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Does that tell us about how he sees race? 20:34.410 --> 20:38.180 align:start Or does that just tell us how President Trump never wants to be on the defensive? 20:38.180 --> 20:42.530 align:start BOB WOODWARD: That's a - I can't answer that question. All I can do is show it. 20:42.530 --> 20:49.860 align:start And you see the reaction to people. And what it suggests to a number is that it means 20:49.860 --> 20:57.900 align:start the war, the race war in this country, will never end unless you have a president who's 20:57.900 --> 21:07.110 align:start going to take steps to heal. And I was really shocked at that. I thought for a few 21:07.110 --> 21:17.250 align:start words you create such nervousness that you throw fuel on this racial discord in the 21:17.250 --> 21:28.750 align:start country. And it's out of the mainstream. And I think you have to look at every day - 21:28.750 --> 21:34.700 align:start like this is the way the people in the White House look at it - which is who knows 21:34.700 --> 21:40.030 align:start what's going to happen. The tweets - I mean, they start the day, you know this, 21:40.030 --> 21:43.150 align:start reading the tweets because no one knows what's going to come. 21:43.150 --> 21:46.750 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Because he's upstairs alone in the executive residence of the White House 21:46.750 --> 21:50.100 align:start tweeting by himself. When you think about all the challenges you've laid out 21:50.100 --> 21:55.320 align:start here Bob - in the book, in your reporting - are the challenges surrounding 21:55.320 --> 21:59.910 align:start President Trump different - in a different class than the challenges that 21:59.910 --> 22:02.830 align:start you've encountered with the nine other presidents you've observed? 22:02.830 --> 22:10.810 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Yeah, this is - this is unique, because it is - there's not an operating 22:10.810 --> 22:16.240 align:start theory. There's not a team building. I keep going back to you've got to have a team. 22:16.240 --> 22:21.260 align:start It's just like here on your show. You have a team. I've met all your producers. 22:21.260 --> 22:23.790 align:start I know they do all the work, not you. 22:23.790 --> 22:26.230 align:start ROBERT COSTA: (Laughs.) Very true. 22:26.230 --> 22:30.930 align:start BOB WOODWARD: And that at The Washington Post, you have a team. You need a team. 22:30.930 --> 22:38.510 align:start And collaboration is the only way you get to solutions. And a leader has to listen. 22:38.510 --> 22:47.050 align:start And I think the listening skills of a leader are among the most important. And he 22:47.050 --> 22:57.590 align:start just doesn't want to listen. He wants to talk. And he wants to - it's a very troubling 22:57.590 --> 23:05.170 align:start time. And people who want to pretend it's not troubling are kidding themselves. 23:05.170 --> 23:10.470 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, are the institutions - Congress, the federal agencies, the norms in 23:10.470 --> 23:13.340 align:start this country - are they holding? 23:13.340 --> 23:19.210 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Well, it could be tested. And this is when you have - when there's a real crisis. 23:19.210 --> 23:26.590 align:start How do you - (coughs) - excuse me - how does he make his decision in a way that will take 23:26.590 --> 23:35.280 align:start from his disruptor instincts and the paths that these institutions that have been handed 23:35.280 --> 23:40.490 align:start him. When people say it's not normal, I kind of - of course it's not normal. 23:40.490 --> 23:47.480 align:start He won on not being normal. You don't have to be normal. But you have to be - you 23:47.480 --> 23:53.550 align:start can't go around - I mean, you talk to - I was talking to some of the BBC people today. 23:53.550 --> 23:59.100 align:start And, my God, you know, in the - in Europe they're just saying, what is going on? 23:59.100 --> 24:06.460 align:start This book is the bestseller in Europe - imagine that. That just doesn't happen. 24:06.460 --> 24:11.040 align:start That's because people wonder where this all ends. 24:11.040 --> 24:16.560 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Whether it's in Europe, inside of the White House, even now in 2018, 24:16.560 --> 24:21.810 align:start there's a mass effort to try to understand President Trump. 24:21.810 --> 24:26.150 align:start Again and again people are asking the question: Who is he? 24:26.150 --> 24:32.230 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Yes. And unfortunately, his lawyer John Dowd gets the closing 24:32.230 --> 24:37.970 align:start comment in this book. And that is that he's an effing liar. 24:37.970 --> 24:47.280 align:start And this theme - our newspaper, 4,200-and-so-many lies or distortions - that's important. 24:47.280 --> 24:52.150 align:start I think most important is what he does on national security. 24:52.150 --> 24:56.440 align:start That's where you can make a mistake, where you have to have the secretary of defense tell 24:56.440 --> 25:02.850 align:start you: We're doing all these things to prevent World War III - job one for a president. 25:02.850 --> 25:11.660 align:start And then you have the beleaguered Trump in the Mueller probe, which he just - as John 25:11.660 --> 25:19.550 align:start Dowd says - you know, he's really disabled. He can't tell the truth. 25:19.550 --> 25:25.740 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Bob Woodward, thank you so much for your reporting, your insights now and 25:25.740 --> 25:29.480 align:start for the past four decades. Appreciate your time. Thanks for being here. 25:29.480 --> 25:31.390 align:start BOB WOODWARD: Thanks, Bob. 25:31.390 --> 25:34.520 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Our conversation will continue on the Washington Week Extra. 25:34.520 --> 25:38.680 align:start You can find this week's special edition right now and all weekend long at 25:38.680 --> 25:45.400 align:start PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. And to everyone affected by Hurricane Florence, please be safe. 25:45.400 --> 26:47.490 align:start We are thinking of you. I'm Robert Costa. Thanks for joining us.